July was busy.With Independence Day, the Ann Arbor Art Fair, a trip to Wyoming, and various cookouts and golf outings, August arrived like a too early party guest. At least I was able to clear out some overgrown flora and experiment with a basil/jalapeno pickle recipe during that over-packed month.
Recounting my July tonight during a long overdue visit with Howard prompted a delightful set of narratives from my 89 year old friend. He’s noticeably frailer and he made me nervous watching him walk (or should I say teeter?). But a genuine welcome was offered along with his standard invitation to a pour of bourbon and a comfortable chair.
Telling him about the pickles ignited his memories of his family’s garden and annual canning rituals.
They lived on Seventh Street in town (now in an area known as the “Old West Side” replete with quarter acre lots and 1200 square foot homes as unique as Ann Arbor herself). Howard reported that they had a large garden and as many as 75-100 chickens at any one time. “We’d probably can as many as 300 jars of tomatoes, cooked chicken, various vegetables, and fruit each year,” he remembered. “I remembered eating stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato juice, boiled tomatoes . . . I ended up hating the goddamn things.” For the record, he reported that he now loves them.
He then proceeded share canning tips that included a delightful onomatopoeia to describe the sound of canning lids sealing.
“You know where the Art Fair really started?” barked Howard after I mentioned dealing with the crowds this year. “Fred Ulrich started the Art Fair on South University before anyone else even thought about it.” Howard recounted that in the late Fifties, the Ann Arbor merchants would annually hold Bargain Days on Main Street and State Street but would exclude the South University merchants. According to Howard, Fred (the founder of Ulrich’s Bookstore – from whom Howard eventually purchased the business) decided to counter this snub by starting a juried art fair. “The goddamn people running it now pretend they were the first – we were!” At the first South University fair there were two tents. “J.T. Abernathy was one of the original exhibitors – I still see him every week at Metzger’s for lunch.”
Abernathy remains a celebrated potter – see J.T. Abernathy
More than a few times, Howard’s ordinarily animated narratives slowed and he struggled to put order to his memories. “I’m an old man,” he sighed.
I told him he was, "an old son-of-a-bitch." He roared.
I let him know about my trip to Wyoming and the float down the Snake River. “In 1944, some of my Army buddies and I took our leave along the Snake River,” started my friend. “All we brought was some oil, flour, salt, pepper, fishing poles and tents.” Howard described a two week adventure along the river where they lived off the land. The animation in his face remembering that time was inspiring.
Maybe my biggest delight from our conversation was confirmation of something reported to me in the early 1990s by a then septuagenarian. As reported in a 2011 post in this blog, "Jesse and Rose", there was a particular enterprise involving bull frogs that was supposedly common among youth. After telling Howard about an earlier trip to Wyoming and recounting the story from that blog post, a wry look came across his face and he admitted doing the same thing.
And the whipping he got from his father.
South University Art Fair image by Milton Kemnitz from Link to image
